Suspiria is an ambitious remix of a horror classic

Remaking horror classics is a tried-and-true tradition, but it’s still a little mystifying why anyone felt 1977’s Suspiria was a good candidate. Dario Argento’s giallo classic, about a dancer training in a school that is secretly home to a coven of witches, isn’t influential for its setting and premise, so much as for its bold visual style, its mood, and the hypnotic score by prog-rock band Goblin. Many of the elements that made the original Suspiria unforgettable were the precise things any remake would necessarily lose.

Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) seems to acknowledge that fact in his remake, which arrives in theaters on October 26th. Set in 1977, the year of the original film’s release, it’s less a traditional…